Clint'Spot

Online Leather Couch Repair Help

2010-02-15T16:43:00.004+13:00

I thought I'd break my (almost 1 year!?) online silence (well, on this Blog anyway) to rave about a great resource I stumbled upon, which hopefully may help others as much as it helped me.

The background goes like this; I bought a Leather couch off TradeMe a while back (sight unseen) and when we got it home we found that it hadn't really been looked after very well. I obviously hadn't been conditioned or cleaned properly - which you need to, with Leather. The seams and edges were pretty well worn, and there was also a good deal of white paint stuck to the back of it (where they had obviously painted the lounge and pushed the couch up against it while the walls were still wet). I am selling the couch, so wanted to do my best to tidy it up, so the person I sold it to didn't have the unfortunate surprise that we did, upon closer inspection.

Searching around a bit I found Paul Ford's "Leather Help" website. I have to say it's such a great site, not only because the information and photos are easy to follow and very helpful, but I think its a great example of using the web to put information 'out there' for free, for all to use and benefit from. Sure, Paul sells products through the website, and indeed I bought a couple of Pelle kits from him, but the how-to information etc. is all there for you to use with no purchase necessary.

I bought the DIY Leather Repair Kit, and pretty much the next day I received it by Courier. Following the instructions from the website I repaired every scuff, scratch and wear from the couch - and there were a lot of them, believe me. Sure it took some time - hours in fact - but only due to the sheer scale of the problem. But the results were nothing short of miraculous. Really amazing how well this stuff works. I'm not sure if the photos will do it any justice, but suffice it to say that even the large splashes of white paint were well covered and are hardly noticeable (only as an area a little shinier than the rest).

So if you're ever in need of some light (or even pretty heavy) repair work on a Leather couch (cat scratches etc), and you don't feel like sending it off to some expensive professional, I highly recommend Paul Ford's Leather Help website. His tips, photos and products are worth their weight in gold! And his after sales email follow ups were a nice touch too. Thanks Paul!

Blackout New Zealand - Stand up against "Guilt Upon Accusation" for New Zealand

2009-02-17T11:15:00.006+13:00

I only spotted this on Twitter last night (thanks to @stephenfry, of course), but it seems to be gathering some momentum now with lots of news sites including nme.com picking it up (obvious exception being the NZ Herald at the moment).

http://news.google.co.nz/news?&ncl=1304617871

There's a great Geekzone Blog Entry here which describes the issue: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/6247

I think this law is completely crazy, and even though I'm not interested in pirating music (iTunes Plus with No DRM is good enough for me, and I still buy CDs every few weeks) I think the possibility of losing my access to the Internet because of a simple accusation is not only likely but would also be pretty damaging. Most of my client work has been done from home over the past few months, and were Orcon to pull the plug on my service, at the whim of a large media conglomerate, not only would I not be able to work it would affect the other consultants I work with too. And I'm sure I'm not the only one in this position. With the economy the way it is at the moment, you'd think the government would be doing all it can to support small businesses, especially those of use environmentally savvy enough to work from home.

I don't know whether or not any of this will have any effect, but hopefully if the story gains enough traction on the mainstream news sites, someone in government (other than United Future MP Peter Dunne) will step up to change (if not repeal) this ridiculous law. Hopefully before February 28th, but definitely before it does any damage and ends up knocking me or many others like me, off the net.

A horrific thought! :-|

VMware, CPU VT Features and Asus Motherboards

2009-01-20T09:53:00.004+13:00

I recently built a machine to run as a lab/training box for VMware ESXi at home, and have it running quite nicely with Virtual Center and a few VMs. I ran into a bit of trouble before Christmas though when I tried to run up a 64-bit Ubuntu Server.

The VM wouldn't power on due to an error with a mismatch in CPU capabilities and those required by the VM.

"cpu on host is incompatible with cpu feature requirements of virtual machine. problem detected at cpuID level 0x80000001 register 'edx'."

It turned out to be the 'VT' (Virtualization Technology for x86 (VT-x), previously codenamed "Vanderpool", referred to in the BIOS setup as 'Vanderpool Technology') feature that ESX was complaining was missing. I was totally confused though as both my motherboard (an Asus P5QL-EM) and CPU (an Intel E8400) support the VT feature and it was indeed enabled in the Motherboard BIOS.

I found the very useful tool VMware CPU Host Info and ran it up against my Virtual Center server. Sure enough, it showed that although my ESXi Hardware supported VT it was not actually enabled. So I doubled checked the BIOS setting again, enabled (after shutting down all running VMs, of course).

After establishing that I was running the latest version of the BIOS (0412) I decided to try and contact Asus, through their website, to log this as a support fault. I received the following reply (on 19/12):

Dear Clint Revell,
Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.

My name is Lyn and it's my pleasure to help you with your problem.
The motherboard supports Vanderpool Technology.
And it seems that you have enabled it in BIOS.
But as I know, Intel Vanderpool Technology has special requirements for the OS and the softwares too. For detail, maybe you can try to contact Intel directly for some help.
http://mysearch.intel.com/corporate/default.aspx?culture=en_US&q=Vanderpool+Technology&category=all&adv=0&value=0
Welcome to refer Troubleshooting & FAQ for ASUS products in ASUS website:
http://support.asus.com/troubleshooting/troubleshooting.aspx?SLanguage=en-us
http://support.asus.com/faq/faq.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

If having any problems, please don't hesitate to let me know. Let's discuss this issue together.
Thank you for using ASUS products and enjoying ASUS services!

Lyn

ASUS Customer Service Center (Shanghai, China)

I'm sure you'll agree that the response was pretty much useless. But it was a response, and a nice polite one at that.

In the New Year I decided to try again, with the same result, and checked again for a BIOS update. What'dya know... Asus released the P5QL-EM BIOS version 0418 on 30/12/2008 with the following fixes:

1. Fix "Vanderpool Technology" item is invalid in setup.

So I installed the BIOS update, my 64-bit Ubuntu VM booted up straight away my VMware CPU Host Info tool of course shows 'VT Enabled'. Hooray!

So did Asus fix the issue after I contacted them? Or did they just notice it themselves and remedy it as part of the ongoing improvement process. I guess I'll never know, but I'm glad it's fixed none-the-less.

VMware ESX3i Lab Machine at Home

2008-12-11T16:22:00.010+13:00

After I finished the VMware Infrastructure 3: Install & Configure v3.5 course I decided to put together a cheap(!) PC that I could use to mess around a little more with ESX, particularly before I sit the VCP exam. So I looked around for hardware that could reasonably run a few Virtual Machines, and ESX, in as small a form-factor as possible. For a custom PC that mean looking for a Micro-ATX motherboard and Case, a CPU with VT and 64bit features, at least 4GB RAM and a reasonable amount of disk space.

The motherboard I decided on (after much deliberation) was an Asus P5QL-EM. I really wanted to get a P5Q-EM but noone in New Zealand had them in stock. As it was the company I got all of the other components from (Playtech) couldn't get me a P5QL motherboard, so I had to order it through Acquire and go and pick it up from Morning Star out by the Airport (quite a way from my house). The main difference between the P5Q and P5QL is the chipset (G43 as opposed to the G45) which means less total memory capacity (8GB instead of 16GB) and its also missing a few Media-related capabilities. I didn't think I'd miss those that much, and I wanted it sooner rather than later so went for the cheaper board. Other cool things about this motherboard:

Supports the 45nm CPUs (lower power & heat - good for home)
Onboard VGA, DVI and HDMI (capable of full 1080p output - might be nice for a future media center PC)
eSATA connector for additional storage

I bought an Intel E8400 Core2 Duo 3GHz, which is a 45nm CPU. A bit more expensive than the older CPUs but I like the low power idea. Also the HDD I bought is low power rated and quiet - a Western Digital 1TB EACS.

The case - a Silverstone SG03B is pretty funky looking. The guy at Playtech said I would struggle to build it, as it is quite cramped, but I didn't have any problems. It was quite a cool little project to put together. The Micro ATX case sure is cute, and fits everything in nicely. Silverstone have done a good design job to make sure you can get at everything, removable HDD rails etc. The Corsair HX-620 power supply has modular power connectors - so that cuts down some of the clutter inside the case.

I installed 4GB of G.Skill DDR2-800 RAM, so there's still room for another 4GB if I need it. I still can't believe you can get 4GB of RAM for $100 now!

I'm pretty happy with the final result. It's a pretty quick machine, but nice and compact and really quiet.

So after building all this I tried to install ESX 3.5 (update 3) from the downloaded CD (ISO image). As expected it wouldn't install due to a hardware issue. The first one was due to the fact ESX couldn't read from the (SATA) CD-ROM. It brought up the (rather unhelpful) error message "No driver found, Unable to find any devices of the type needed for this installation type".

What it really wanted to say was change the storage configuration in the BIOS to IDE mode, and type the following at the ESX installation boot prompt:

esx all-generic-ide irqpoll pci=nommconf

So having gotten past that the expected issue showed up - ESX doesn't like the onboard NIC. So I went on a mission to try and find an HCL-listed network card. I wanted a Gigabit Card, with e1000 driver support. So it came down to finding an Intel Pro 1000GT or Intel Pro 1000PT. I couldn't find anyone with an Intel Pro 1000 PT desktop NIC (non-low Profile) in stock, so I had to front up with $200 for a Server NIC. A nice card, but a little pricey all the same.

So ESX installed fine, and I jumped on the web interface, downloaded and installed the Virtual Infrastructure Client and logged on. No storage adapters, and no ability to add VMFS storage :-( So while I could connect to a NAS using NFS or iSCSI I couldn't use my 1TB drive for storage of any Virtual Machines VMDKs or ISO images. Pretty much useless.

So after a few tears, and feeling very ripped off, I decided to go for the VI in a box setup. Not desirable at all, but potentially the only way to get ESX running on my new hardware: Install Ubuntu Server 64bit (host), VMware Server 2.0 64bit and ESX Server 3.5 update 3 (guest) running in a Virtual Machine. I've been trying on and off for the past week to get that to work. I've read so many Blog posts about getting ESX to work in a VM, most or all with the same hints/tips.

But while they work fine for VMware Workstation 6.5, they just don't work for VMware Server 2.0 (for me anyway). ESX installs fine, but sits eating 100% CPU, takes hours to finish booting and when it finally does it's so slow its unusable. Here are some of the better links I've found:

The Xtravirt Whitepaper: http://knowledge.xtravirt.com/downloads/ESXonWKS65118166.pdf

The VMware Forums:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/86877?tstart=0&start=45

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/67254?tstart=0&start=15

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/164935

Running ESXi in VMware Server 2: http://eightfour.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=1

What they basically all say is you need to ensure your VMX file has the following lines added:

monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "TRUE"

monitor_control.vt32 = "TRUE"

ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"

So then I started following some of the threads about ESXi, and downloaded the ISO, and tried to run that in a VMware Server VM. But I had the same problem.

So today I thought I'd try to install ESXi instead of 3.5 on the PC as a host. Because although I'd found lots of articles saying SATA isn't supported AND doesn't work for VMFS storage, I also found a couple that indicated it DID work.

http://vmblog.com/archive/2007/10/03/hacking-your-vmware-esx-server-3i.aspx

http://www.run-virtual.com/?p=196

I followed the instructions in this VMware forum thread:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/158209?tstart=0&start=60

And now I've got a fully functional ESX Server - finally - with almost 1TB of VMFS storage space for VMs!

In summary the steps are:

Replace the oem.tgz file on the ESXi Installer CD with one that includes the SATA controller drivers (ICH10 in my case - from here).
Install ESXi
Boot from a Live Linux CD (I used Gentoo Minimal) and have a USB stick with oem.tgz on it connected
Mount the ESXi partition (mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/gentoo)
Mount the USB stick (mkdir /mnt/usb) and then (mount /dev/sdb /mnt/usb)
Copy the oem.tgz file from the USB stick to the ESXi installation (cp /mnt/usb/oem.tgz /mnt/gentoo)

Thanks to all those in the VMware forums and other blogs that contributed to that info. It worked like a charm for me!

So now I'm getting on with setting up a vCenter Server (Formerly VMware Virtual Center - VMware have gone all Checkpoint and started renaming products every few months! - the weirdest one: Old: VMFS, New: VMware vStorage VMFS! ... who is going to say that mouthful every time?).

I also might have a play setting up my NAS with NFS and use that for Vmotion between a couple of ESX servers. Maybe one running in a VMware Workstation 6.5 VM...hmmm, wonder if that'll work ;-)

VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure Day 4

2008-11-28T17:00:00.002+13:00

I just finished the fourth and final day of the VMware Infrastructure 3 course. I think overall it was pretty worthwhile. Definitely picked up a few good tips and learnt more about some of the more detailed features/functions of the products - especially the newer stuff. And best of all - I just got a nice new VMware bag :-) Cool. It's quite a good one too (better than the Cisco one from Networkers this year!).

Now to study for the VCP exam! (And maybe build myself an ESX Server lab machine at home to help me revise)

Here are my notes on the topics we've been through today.

Resource Management

VMotion network can be used as a secondary heartbeat network for HA
The final thing the VMkernel does after a VMotion is a Reverse ARP, ensuring the switch knows the Virtual Machine's MAC address is accessible via the 2nd ESX Host
The time between VMotion and scheduling instructions on the 2nd ESX Host's CPU is typically between 50 and 200ms.
For VMotion to work there must be a virtual switch and port group with an identical name (case sensitive) on the 2nd ESX Host.
As CPU affinity can cause incompatibility with VMotion only use in a lab/testing environment.

Resource Monitoring

HEC = Hardware Execution Context. An HEC is typically a CPU core (today), but also a HT CPU.
vmmemctl = Balloon Driver. Takes RAM from guest machines when physical RAM in host is scarce, causing Guests to Page/Swap more.
By default the Balloon Driver will not expand beyond 65% of the VM configured memory.
Use iometer to generate artificial disk load for testing purposes

Data and Availability Protection

Service Console backups are in reality limited to a small amount of configuration settings, 3rd party software/agents, and logs in /var/log partition.
ESX Host restore can be scripted using anaconda kick-start files, using a finish script to recreate Virtual Switch settings etc.
VMware HA does not increase availability, it decreases downtime.
VMware HA restarts virtual machines when physical machines fail.
VMware HA network ports:
Incoming - TCP/UDP 8042-8045
Outgoing - TCP/UDP 2050-2250
VMware HA best practices: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1002080

VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure Day 3

2008-11-27T17:00:00.016+13:00

And at the end of Day 3 on the VMware Infrastructure 3 course...more notes...

Virtual Machines...

Open Filer is an Open Source Storage Appliance (NAS), including iSCSI support, runs well in a VM, available as a Virtual Appliance.

VMware Converter

VMware Converter standard is free. Enterprise costs $.
VMware Converter standard is used one machine at a time. Enterprise can run unattended converting multiple machines.
VMware Converter standard can be operated in 'Hot' and 'Remote' modes, Enterprise is required for 'Cold' operation (boot from CD).

Virtual Machine Management

VirtualCenter can now expand volumes, similar to the command-line tool: vmkfstools

Guided Consolidation

Limited value - potentially only for very small environments
Only collects 24 hours of data, from 8 perfmon counters
Confidence Level is really a progress bar with 100% representing 24 hours of data collected. High Confidence does not necessarily mean the data collected is representative of the environment's typical workload.
VMware capacity planner is a much better tool, collects all statistics for 30 days, and works on both Windows and Linux

Access Control

VirtualCenter authentication is Windows only (AD or Local Windows Accounts)
ESX (Service Console) authentication is local Linux user accounts or PAM (e.g. LDAP back to AD)
VirtualCenter authenticates to an ESX host as 'vpxuser' (with a random password)
Permissions = User/Group + Role (+ Privileges). Permissions -> applied to -> Inventory Objects
Web Access 'Generate Remote Console URL' provides access (directly to an ESX host) for users/administrators to manage a single VM.

Resource Management

CPU or Memory shares are never used unless there is contention for CPU or Memory resources
Shares are only relative within resource pool siblings - not between resource pools

VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure Day 2

2008-11-26T17:30:00.016+13:00

So today was day two of the VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure course. It was a lot more interesting than Day 1, although still ran at a pretty slow pace. Below are some of my notes made during the course & labs:

Storage

SAN Troubleshooting Guide available, recommended reading:
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_san_design_deploy.pdf
ESX can boot from an iSCSI SAN only when using a hardware initiator (iSCSI HBA).
ESX does not currently support TCP/IP offload engine (TOE) NIC cards (although it does support TCP session offload).
When using a software iSCSI initiator the session is established (TCP/3260) using the Service Console network interface (CHAP & SendTargets IP address discovery). Network Connectivity is required from the service console to the iSCSI SAN (could use a 2nd service console interface, just for this purpose).

VirtualCenter

ODBC connection from Virtual Center to SQL 2005 DB needs SQL Native Client (not SQL Server ODBC driver)
Virtual Center SQL Login needs db_owner on vCenter and MSDB databases

Important VMware communications - e.g for firewall security policy

VirtualCenter to License Server: 27000, 27010
Rebates and SDK Clients to VirtualCenter: 443, 80
VirtualCenter to ESX Hosts: 902
VI Client to VirtualCenter: 443
VI Client to ESX Host Remote Console: 903

By default VirtualCenter accumulates performance data on ESX Hosts and VMs for 1 year
Commands to check the status of, or start the ESX host process (vmware-hostd):
service mgmt-vmware status, service mgmt-vmware start

Virtual Machines

As a guideline deploy single CPU VMs unless a multiple CPU VM is absolutely needed (e.g. multithreaded application requirement).
As a guideline deploy multiple CPU VMs when there is at least a 2:1 ratio between virtual and physical CPU requirements (e.g. dual core VM, have quad core Host. Quad core VM have 8 core Host).
There is no support in ESX for virtual USB devices (even though there is in VMware Workstation).
www.digi.com have a USB to TCP/IP (5xUSB, 1xRJ45 - 10/100Mb Ethernet) converter - called AnywhereUSB. Software can be installed in the VM which provides access to the USB device over the VM's network interface.

VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure Training

2008-11-25T17:00:00.015+13:00

Today was day one on the 'VMware Infrastructure 3: Install and Configure' training course, which I'm doing mainly because that's the only way VMware will allow you to get the VMware Certified Professional (VCP) certification (you can't just take the exam - the course is required). As the course is pretty slow-paced I thought I'd blog some notes as I go along, which I can refer back to if needed, and they may come in handy for someone else out there too...

Certification & Exams

Read the VCP on VI3 Exam Blueprint

http://mylearn.vmware.com/lcms/mL_faq/1714/VCP3.5Blueprint.PDF

Take the VCP on VI3 Mock Exam

http://mylearn.vmware.com/quiz.cfm?item=639&ui=www

Book the Exam through Pearson Vue (90 mins, 70% required):

http://www.pearsonvue.com/vmware/

Intro

VMware Authorized Consultants (VACs) can access a tool, VMware Capacity Planner, which helps plan virtualising a data centre.

VCDX Certification intended to represent a similar 'level' of ability in VMware that the CCIE did 10 years ago. Intended to be very difficult to attain. Requires multi choice exam, hands-on labs and completion and presentation of a design to a board of examiners.

The HCL is three documents, updated almost every week (Wednesday). System (Server), IO (NIC), Storage/SAN.

Installation

swap Partition size = 2 x Service Console RAM (272MB) = 544MB (No 3rd party modules) = 2 x Service console RAM Maximum (800MB) = 1.6GB (Recommended for Production Use, permits the installation of additional 3rd party modules in the service console)

/var/log = 500MB minimum, VMware recommends 2GB.

Labs

Accessed the 'Lab' via VMware's 'Virtual Datacenter' - actually HP Proliant DL360G5 servers in one of two physical datacenters in San Francisco. (VMware have 700 physical hosts to run education around the world). Installed ESX 3.5 using HP iLO access, from a Citrix Metaframe XP connection to a VMware Classroom 'PC' (running the RES PowerFuse locked-down Windows shell).

Commands for troubleshooting service console connectivity (wrong NIC selected as service console):

esxcfg-nics -l (list NICs and PCI addresses in system)

esxcfg-vswitch -l (list NICs and virtual switches)

esxcfg-vswitch -U and esxcfg-vswitch -L (to link the correct NIC)

Networking

ESX has three uses for networking:

Virtual Machine connectivity

Service Console connectivity

Kernel Connectivity (Vmotion + Storage (iSCSI, NAS))

Load balancing VM networking connections across multiple physical NICs based on IP Hash requires Etherchannel/802.3AD Aggregation support in the physical network switching infrastructure.

iPhone 3G, Snowboarding and Motor Racing

2008-10-01T22:12:00.005+13:00

My non-technical pasttime this winter has been learning to Snowboard, with a couple of trips to different mountains in NZ completed so far (and I'm off again tomorrow). There was no chance of me leaving my gadgets behind though, especially not my iPhone 3G. I've become quite attached to it since I queued for it back on the launch day. (In fact most of my colleagues at FINAO have also become iPhone users since then - it's practically our corporate phone standard).

My biggest concern taking the iPhone Snowboarding was smashing it (I was only learning, after all) so I had to get a decent case. The morning I flew down to Queenstown I headed to Magnum Mac in Albany and picked up my Griffin Nu Form case, which was pretty much the best they had to choose from at the time. And while it did protect my iPhone during some pretty crash-filled days at Coronet Peak in the weeks after I returned it cracked and broke - becoming pretty much unusable (easily slipping off).
It wasn't from me dropping it or anything either. My colleague Mike has one too and his has also broken in exactly the same spot. It's obviously a weak point in the design. I took it back to Magnum Mac but they wouldn't exchange it or give me my money back, so I had to buy another one. From a different manufacturer of course. I definitely won't be recommending the Griffin Nu Form iPhone 3G cases to anyone that asks!

So my new case is a Contour Design 'Fusion' for iPhone 3G. It's a much more 'rubbery' feeling case but it doesn't seem to have the same weak points as the Griffin case does, in that all the accessory switches are moulded over rather than cut around. It's also quite a nice deep gloss black - much like the phone itself - so doesn't look as cheap as the other one. We'll see how well it protects the iPhone Snowboarding tomorrow and Friday at Turoa skifield on Mt Ruapehu.

The other thing I've found interesting iPhone/Snowboarding related is the excellent Snowreports iPhone app, from www.snowreports.co.nz. It's been really useful with quick checkups of the conditions on the slopes days (or even weeks) before we headed to Coronet Peak, Mt Dobson and more recently Turoa. I have to say that I've still been falling back to the Metservice website for more details, but the iPhone app is very cool. I'm looking forward to new features in time for next year's ski season. In fact there may even be time left this year with Boxing Day skiiing already on the cards for Mt Ruapehu, due to the huge amount of snow we've had this year!

As soon as we're done Snowboarding (that's assuming the weather holds out and the wind goes away and we actually get out there) Jon & I are heading to Taupo to watch my cousin Dale racing in the first round of the New Zealand V8s Championship motor racing.

I've recently completed an update to his website, reflecting his new team colours, and I took the opportunity to move from a static HTML site which was hard for me to update to one based on Joomla. Although Joomla is free I sprung $50 for a professional site template which was quite nice, but other than that it's been a low-cost high functionality return. Administering content with Joomla is a breeze, and its been quite fun figuring out just what it can do. I'm not much of a programmer or web developer so it's nice to get quite a dynamic site without too much pain.

I'm always on the search now for new Joomla modules that I can play with, and possibly add some life to my own website.

Anyway I'll be blogging away this weekend (technology and Vodafone NZ 3G coverage willing) at dalewilliamsracing.blogspot.com. I really do need to hack my iPhone so I can use it as a tethered modem. It really sucks that AT&T won't let Apple enable that functionality. I really relied on that with my Nokia E61s (and earlier). Maybe my next Laptop (possibly a Toshiba Portege M700) will have to have 3G data built in. Will have to spring for _another_ $50 1GB monthly data charge then though! :-(

Media Server NAS

2008-09-01T18:12:00.002+12:00

I haven't posted anything in a while - it's not that I haven't had anything to post, just been too busy.

So the first thing I've been messing around with is my little NAS - a D-Link DNS-323, with a single 1TB (for now). It's an awesome little box, nice and quiet (except at bootup when the fan swings into action) with great features. Power consumption is nice and low, and the HDD spins down when not in use so I get some pretty nice 'always-on' features without upsetting Al Gore ;-) There's really good community support as well with loads of other users out there. I really like the funplug stuff - where you can run pretty much a full *nix OS on it and all sorts of add-on applications without much effort at all.

I'm using the Fonz Funplug (FFP), which is as easy to install as dropping the script and a .tgz file and rebooting. Then change the root password, enable the sshd daemon and your away. Check out this list of pre-compiled add-on packages!

One of the primary goals of running the NAS was as a Media Server for my XBox360 in my bedroom. Something to stream TV/movies and Video Podcasts without requiring another PC running all the time. I started out with Twonky - the 30 day trial version and it worked like a charm, with only a few hiccups. One issue I had with it - and many others have experienced the same thing - is while streaming Music it just cuts out. The song time keeps counting but there's no sound. You can skip to the next song and it starts and plays fine for a while, then cuts out again.

So I thought I'd have a look at alternatives before parting with my 30 euros :-} The main app that people have been discussing is uShare. I started by upgrading to FFP 0.5 (delete the old one, reboot, put the new files on, reboot) then I downloaded the pre-built archive mentioned here, extracted it and ran the install script. A quick edit of the /ffp/etc/ushare.conf file to point at my media directories and its up and running.

So far it works great for Videos, Music is still a bit random with it listing all files instead of sorting by Album etc. But I'm looking into a fix. I'm sure someone else has come across the same thing and hopefully knows the resolution.

The other thing I'd like to be able to do is Wake-On-LAN from the DNS-323. So I can VPN in, SSH to the NAS and startup a PC if needed. I'm sure there's other cool things that can be done too, the combination of price and features makes this a really nice little box. Highly recommended.

Rockstar!

2008-06-24T14:50:00.002+12:00

Well I'm slowly working my way through GTA4. I've completed 67.81% of the game after 49 1/2 hours playing time, and I've only gone one more story mission left to complete. I haven't played much on multiplayer, but that's only down to limited time available (my global rank: 394,495!).

I got the first game update today, which was interesting. Doesn't sound like it'll affect me that much yet. I had a couple of multiplayer rounds last night with my mate Pete, and got an achievement (Let Sleeping Rockstars Lie). Looking into it today, it's: "Kill a Rockstar developer in a ranked multiplayer match." Pretty cool really :-)

Motherboard Issues and a Media-Streaming NAS

2008-06-24T12:26:00.008+12:00

A couple of months back I upgraded the CPU in my home PC, from an Intel Dual Core 2.4GHz to a Core2 Quad 2.4 GHz (E6600). I didn't really need the upgrade, I rarely play PC games, but I thought it would make my Video Editing life a little quicker. An d it was cheap - only $300. My thinking was that I could pull the Dual Core CPU out and throw it into my brother's PC - giving us both an upgrade.

1st disappointment: The Dual Core CPU wouldn't work in my brother's motherboard (although it says supports dual core on the box, the fine-print on the website list that CPU as not supported). So I've been thinking about getting a cheap replacement MB for his PC, so I can make use of the CPU (currently sitting on my desk).

2nd disappointment: Ever since I installed the Quad Core CPU in my PC I get full hardware lockups intermittently. Sometimes repeatedly, straight after turning the PC on. Pain in the backside. So although my MB fully supports the CPU, there's got to be some compatibility issue (MB=Asus Striker Extreme).

I have upgraded my BIOS a few times to try and resolve the issue, with no great luck - when I spotted the 3rd problem: My RAID-1 config has been broken - probably as the result of a BIOS upgrade & loading setup defaults :-( I have 2x 500GB HDDs in a mirror, to protect my data - and now I have two separate HDs showing in Windows with different amounts of data on them. Grrr.

So I need to recreate the mirror - but the last time I did that I lost data, so I need a backup before proceeding. I don't have enough spare HDDs to backup the 450GB I have on these drives, so I've been shopping for a 1TB HDD, and a little NAS to put it in. There are some really cool NASs around these days, for very little money. I've been looking at:
* Linksys NAS200
* WD My Book World Edition (Dicky's got one)
* D-Link DNS-323

I was looking seriously at getting the NAS200 - due to it's cheap price, I like the Linksys brand, and the Media Streaming capability intrigued me. I like the idea of streaming movies etc straight to my Xbox 360 without having my PC switched on (using TVersity). But then after more reading website reviews etc. the D-Link box looks superior to the Linksys. Both in terms of performance and features. The D-Link has a 10/100/1000 interface and the Linksys only has a 10/100, but the internal CPU speed of the D-Link is better too. These results show how well the D-Link performs. There's a good Wiki about the DNS-323 here.

The best price I've found for the D-Link is at Ascent ($370) although no-one seems to have any in stock. And I've ordered a WD Caviar 1TB HDD, (for $318) which looks to have some good power saving features (might be helpful if I leave the NAS on 24x7).

So that'll solve my HDD issue. And hopefully provide a nice new media streaming system.

Now back to the motherboard issue. I've decided to buy a new MB for my PC - an Asus P5Q Pro, and move my Striker Extreme into my brother's computer. The main benefit of doing this for me will be the ability to run my Corsair Dominator 8500C5D RAM at 1066Mhz - where I can only run it at 800MHz in my current MB (has annoyed me all this time). Hopefully that'll give me a slight performance gain.

I gave up on the Striker Extreme following this weekend's hair-pulling antics after a BIOS upgrade gone wrong (Problem #4). In further troubleshooting my CPU hang issue I noticed that there was a (yet even) newer BIOS available from Asus - version 1504. I completed the upgrade using the EZflash function in the BIOS (from USB memory stick). It verified the BIOS upgrade OK, said it was restarting in 5seconds, then never came back.

The LCD Poster code was CODEINIT. Not a good sign. I tried all sorts of things to get past it, CMOS clear button, HW clock reset jumper everything. I was fully ready to remove it from the case and return to the supplier for an EEPROM replacement. And then I found a forum post mentioning something else I hadn't tried. Physically removing the CMOS battery from the MB - powering on for 10s - CMOS clear - powering off for 10s - replacing the battery - and powering back on.

It was back, working fine - but I still have the occasional lockup issue :-(

So it's new motherboard time. When the board and the HD arrive I'll backup my data and rebuild my machine. This time I'm going to install Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit SP1 - having finally obtained an SP1 slipstreamed install disk. I've waited almost 18 months to install Vista, following the hardware issues I had straight off I've run XP on it ever since, but with SP1 I figure it's about time to try again. And running 64bit should enable me to see the whole 4GB of RAM. Yay!

Slipstreaming XP SP3 - Issues with Windows Vista

2008-06-09T19:50:00.001+12:00

Don't slipstream XP sp3 on Windows Vista! - Bink.nu
Doh! Just found this out the hard way: If you try and create a slipstreamed Windows XP Service Pack 3 image (i386 directory for an ISO) on Vista it all looks like it works great until the machine you want to install boots into Windows - it won't accept a valid product ID. What a waste of time :-(

Back to the start, extracting Sp3 from the .exe (-x), extracting an i386 directory from my bootable ISO, and doing a update.exe /slipstream:c:\temp - this time from another XP machine...

Silly really to think that two Microsoft products would work well together.

SP1 has landed - Finally!

2008-06-03T11:21:00.004+12:00

I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I was finally offered Windows Vista SP1. The surprise was really down to the fact that I still hadn't met the prerequisites for drivers that SP1 was previously looking for. I got one of the two drivers I was missing a couple of weeks back - a new version of the Sigmatel Audio driver (from Microsoft).

But as I wrote a while back, Microsoft Support (KB948343) said I needed a new UPEK Fingerprint Reader driver - which wasn't available from my manufacturer (Toshiba). It had been suggested to me that I just install the latest driver from the UPEK website - they have v2.10 build 118 available, whereas I have v1.9.2.74 - the latest available through Toshiba.

But I wasn't really THAT keen. BSODing my primary laptop wasn't really a good option for me - so I was waiting for updated drivers to be available through the OEM (as MS said there were issues with drivers pre-v1.9.2.99).

So when Windows Update offered me SP1 I went looking. Had I Windows-Updated the UPEK driver without knowing? Nope. Nothing had changed. Going back to KB948343 to double check - and that entry has gone. It's no longer a troublesome driver apparently. What? How is that possible? Either SP1 + bad driver = BSOD or it doesn't, surely.

So I tried searching around for a while to see if anyone else had experienced any issues, but couldn't find anything (Theory: If it's not Googleable then it doesnt exist). I then decided to proceed with the Service Pack update - but only following a couple of hours of extra backups to both another PC and an external HDD.

I guess the only stand out thing with this Service Pack, from all the (seems like 1000s of) other ones I've done in the past is that it took AGES. It said allow 1 hour or something, but I'm sure it took 2. A really long time anyway. But when everything came back without a problem I was happy. And from the relatively short time I've been using it, I'm sure its working faster than before. My niggly Outlook 2007 freezing on startup problem has gone away too, which is great.

I'll continue to keep my eye on it for a while before officially declaring it a success, but I'm happy for the time being. Yay!

Checkpoint SPLAT and hardware limitations

2008-05-07T20:20:00.002+12:00

I'm just struggling through planning an implementation of Checkpoint VPN-1 on SecurePlatform & HP hardware. Unfortunately the quad-port NICs the customer used to use (PCIx NC340T) are no longer available for purchase. The only quad-ports that are available for purchase are the NC364T (a PCI express card) - but they are only supported in SecurePlatform 2.6 NGX R65 (as opposed to just SecurePlatform NGX R65). What's the difference? The newer one is a fork based on the Linux 2.6 kernel.
I found this useful summary from a Checkpoint forum post:

"The main point of moving to the 2.6 linux kernel is increased hardware compatibility. Check Point recommends that you stay on the standard R65 SecurePlatform unless you have hardware that is not supported by the standard R65 release. If you have hardware that is not supported by R65 standard, but is supported by the 2.6 kernel release, then use it.
See the Hardware Compatability List
Please note that there are a few systems not supported by the 2.6 release...
The initial SecurePlatform 2.6 release includes all standard release HFA 01 and HFA 02 fixes. Moving forward, the HFAs will be released separately - e.g., HFA 03 for R65 may be released in a month, and HFA 01 for SecurePlatform 2.6 may be released 3 months later. With different code trees, its recommended to stay with the "main branch" if you can. Same goes for the R65 management "plug-ins"... they're not available for SecurePlatform 2.6.
You cannot upgrade "in-place" from standard R65 to the 2.6 release, but you can upgrade in-place from prior versions. For standard R65 you can perform and export/import to move the SecurePlatform 2.6 release."

What a can of worms that is eh!

I also spotted this forum post which mentions he has the NC364Ts working with SPLAT 2.6 R65, so that's kind of reassuring. Funny though - the Release Notes for R65 mention nothing about all this - but I did find additional Release Notes for SPLAT 2.6 for R65 (which I found by searching - not listed in the documentation links).

Unfortunately that has caused me another problem:
"VPN-1 Accelerator Cards II, III, and IV are not supported in this release. They will be
supported with new drivers in the future."

Grand Theft Auto IV Easter Eggs

2008-05-03T23:09:00.004+12:00

This could be an interesting set of links:
Grand Theft Auto IV Easter Egg Finds | Game | Life from Wired.com

Love the cheat URL www.whattheydonotwantyoutoknow.com :-)

I haven't come across anything that cool yet - how do these people find these things? More time on their hands than I've got, obviously. I'm only 17% through so far - been spending a bit of time playing Multiplayer tonight, which obviously doesnt get me anywhere further ahead (good to work on my aim, though).

My favourite things so far in GTA4:

The Cybercafe (web interface is cool, SPAM email is funny)
Ricky Gervais standup comedy on TV in the apartment
The Police Car computer
Flying through the window after a headon collision (ended up in a tree once!)
The Mobile phone (dial 911 for a police car, SMS text message to restart mission)

I've signed up at the 'Social Club' but it hasn't really opened up anything interesting yet - the multiplayer stats tracking isn't online. So far I have:

Walked 17,296 miles
Driven 124,050 miles

So I've got my first couple of 'certificates' in the Liberty City Marathon :-)

Its definitely the only exercise I've done this week!

Xbox 360 Elite and TVersity

2008-04-27T22:55:00.007+12:00

In preparation for the arrival of Grand Theft Auto 4 tomorrow night (GPStore is open for pickups at midnight) I bought myself another Xbox 360 - this time an Xbox 360 Elite. I dont really need the 120GB HDD, or particularly prefer black over white - I just want the HDMI connection. I'm installing the Elite in my bedroom, and so the HDMI connection means a single cable going across the wall rather than a much bulkier (and shorter) Xbox HDTV cable. I wish I had an Elite in the lounge instead of my original - the HDMI would mean I could get 1080p on the big TV, as opposed to the 1080i I have to put up with through Component connection.

So I got the new console all up and running, using the USB WiFi connection I already had (went wired on the other Xbox a while back). Got connected to my main PC (via TVersity) and was browsing around the music & videos and then tried the 'Internet Videos' link. Low and behold I found YouTube - sweet!, I thought. Stupidly I never realised that TVersity streams and recodes YouTube content too :-) And it works a charm.
So I had a play around with adding more Internet URLs -Video RSS feeds, and got Tekzilla, Mahalo Daily working, and also added the TWiT audio podcast.

Totally stoked. Even though I knew I'd be able to use the new 360 for DVDs and Streamed Videos I never clocked that I'd be able to use it for Podcasts and YouTube too, so thats definitely a big bonus. Now I only need one more thing to make me truly happy - Region 2 (+4) DVD playback!

I've also got to try and find a Black Xbox 360 controller battery pack somehow - it doesn't look like anyone sells the Black ones in NZ!

Wahoo - Stable Internet Again

2008-04-12T23:01:00.003+12:00

OK, so I've got one less thing to whinge about now. Thanks to those lovely chaps at Orcon sorting out my repeated connect/disconnect issue my Broadband's humming again as normal with no interruptions.

It was quite funny actually - after I got Duncan's comment on my Blog on Thursday I dropped him an email, then went home from work. Pretty much as soon as I got home (about 7PM-ish ) the Internet died. Wasn't impressed. No Internet at all now! I thought: one of two things might be happening here, either Duncan's not happy with my Blog so Orcon's cut me off :-), or they're trying to resolve the issues that me and presumably other users were facing.

So I waited for an hour or so for it to come back on (but it didn't), then called the helpdesk (I _hate_ calling helpdesks!). I sat on hold for 15 minutes (listening to some rather amping techno music) and got through to a very well-meaning young lady. She said she tried to do a reset on my DSL port, but was unable to as there were people working in the Browns Bay exchange, but when they had finished she would get one of the L2 techs to check again to see if I still had a problem. I thought that was kind of funny, as there probably wouldn't be people in the exchange if there wasn't actually a problem. So she said it I'll probably have to wait until morning before I got reconnected. I turned my router off (first night it's ever been off since I got it I think) and waited till morning.

Come the morning and I switched the router back on, fingers crossed that my link would come back up. It did. Wahoo! I thought. Back online. So I went to work. I logged in from work to the Orcon system, which shows every connect & disconnect, a few times during the day and it looked pretty good. Got home last night & it was all good too. By this afternoon I was quite happy that the problem had gone away, and got a lovely email from Lee@Orcon confirming the fault had been resolved.

Even better though, later on this afternoon I got a call from Orcon explaining that the product/service I had received wasn't up to what they would expect so I'm going to get a full month's credit on my bill. Nice! :-) So thanks to Duncan and the rest of the Orcon crew. Customer happy on that account.

Now all we have to do is sort out this speed issue. Have to get my speed back up to where it should be - can't let my Facebook profile suffer!

Broadband Speed and 'Upgrades' to ADSL2

2008-04-08T23:24:00.004+12:00

OK, so I think it's time for another rant. I'm mightily disappointed at the moment with my new 'Local Loop Unbundled' broadband service from Orcon. OK, so it's cheaper than Telecom/Xtra, and the boys are going to get good use out of unlimited national calling, but my Internet access is slower! Having paid for an 'ADSL2+' service (billed as 24Mb/s), and living about 250m up the road from the Telephone Exchange (one of the first to be 'freed') I wasn't that impressed when my link speed only came up at 13Mb/s. But that was just the start.

Not only did my link come up 'slow' but it went down again. And came up again. And went down again... more than a dozen times yesterday (more today)! (My old Xtra connection hardly ever went up/down - definitely nothing noticable like this). I've upgraded my Netgear DG834N DSL Router to version 1.02.08 - the first upgrade available for it in like 18months! Hopefully that will improve things somewhat (there's this in the release notes: "Enabled ITU G.992.5 Annex M which extends the capability of basic ADSL2 by doubling the number of upstream bits").

So I get into some downloading - to test the speed of the International bandwidth - all that I'm really interested in (local access speed is kind of meaningless really). And it's noticably slower than usual. Time for the 'Facebook Broadband Speed Challenge'. Yep definitely slower than my Xtra service.

Lucky I've been compiling some stats over time really. I was interested a while back when I noticed that my Xtra Broadband had increased in local access speed from 7ish Mb to over 10Mb - 'I must be on an ADSL2 access, I thought'.

I ran a few tests and sure enough, even the Facebook Broadband app constantly showed I had a good 10+Mb of Internet access. 'Nice' (I thought).

Then I noticed that my speed would drop down every now and then - back to ADSL speeds. Were Telecom messing with my connection, putting me back on the old gear? Hmmm. But anyway then I 'upgraded' to Orcon. The '10 Day' installation lead actually took 3 weeks. Over which time I never once had an email or a phonecall from them confirming my order (I rang them up and told them what I thought of their rubbish customer care). They said they had sent me a confirmation email (to my new Orcon email address! which of course I had no idea how to access). I logged in, but there was no mail there (rubbish! I thought). So I switched my router settings over anyway to the new username/password. And today I get the 'welcome' email. A bit late, I thought, I've already been using your service for a day!

So today - my second day as a new LLU'd conversion - I run my speed tests. And no matter how fast my access speed is, the Facebook app doesnt lie. I've never had such a low speed result before :-( Disaster. One of my Facebook friends is bound to catch me now! (There can be only one #1)

All I can say is that I hope things better. I hope Orcon's customer service improves. Their self service website is definitely nice (gives me great reporting functionality - like seeing how many times a day my link drops!). I hope their international bandwidth picks up. And I hope the boys enjoy their free calls. Cause I sure don't enjoy life in the slow lane :'-(

Where's my SP1?

2008-03-25T23:11:00.006+13:00

OK, so I'm getting kind of anxious now. Windows Vista SP1 has been released. Like a really long time ago! And I still can't get it. Well OK, I can get it (manually), but I've read the reports, the horror stories, the incompatible drivers that will brick my machine (which I use all day every day). So I've patiently waited, installed everything that Windows Update has thrown at me (even Silverlight!) but still no SP1. Do I still have incompatible drivers? I've installed all the new drivers I could find on the Toshiba website (for my Portege M400) but still no SP1.

So check this out: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=948343
And you get this list of reasons why:
Cause 1
You are already running Windows Vista SP1.
- Nope, not me!
Cause 2
Windows Vista SP1 has not been released for the language of the language pack that you have installed.
- Nope, speaka da English
Cause 3
Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool is used to block the delivery of Windows Vista SP1 from Automatic Updates or from Windows Update.
- What? The Service Pack Blocker Tool? Sacrilege! I'm not under the control of some crazy sysadmin who can stop me getting SP1! (quick check of HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate - just in case)
Cause 4
You tried to install Windows Vista SP1, and the installation failed with a known inconsistency in the file or registry structure.
- Nope, haven't even gotten that far.
Cause 5
A hardware device driver or device software was problematic when you updated to Windows Vista SP1.
- But I haven't updated yet, right?
The Windows Update service can detect the small set of device drivers and software that falls into this category. The Windows Update service will not offer Windows Vista SP1 until an update for the hardware device driver or the device software has been installed.
- Now how could I possibly know? How long am I going to have to wait for new drivers?
Cause 6
You have installed a prerelease version of Windows Vista SP1, and you must uninstall the prerelease version, or start with a new installation of Windows Vista.
- Nope. Not me. I'm legit.
Cause 7
You used the third-party program vLite to configure the system, and you may have removed required system components that have to be available for Windows Vista SP1 to be installed.
For more information, visit the following vLite Web site:
http://www.vlite.net (http://www.vlite.net/)
- Nope. Haven't come across that one before.
Cause 8
You see one or more updates for Windows Vista when you run Windows Update. However, you do not see Windows Vista SP1 listed.
- Nope. No updates at all.

So I guess I'm stuck with Cause #5. So what does that mean? A quick scan of the list, and a 'Search' of my system shows two likely candidates:
Method for Cause 5

To help ensure a positive update experience, Windows Update will temporarily not offer Windows Vista SP1 to systems that have the following device drivers. In some cases, these device drivers are problematic on Windows Vista-based computers when you update to Windows Vista SP1. By installing updated device drivers, you will resolve the issue and enable Windows Update to offer Windows Vista SP1.

Audio drivers
SigmaTel
• For x86-based computers: Sthda.sys - version 5.10.5762.0 or earlier
SigmaTel
• For x86-based computers: Stwrt.sys - version 6.10.5511.0 or earlier

Biometric (Fingerprint) Sensors
• UPEK Fingerprint Sensor with the Tcusb.sys driver file – version 1.9.2.99 or earlier

Bugger! The latest version available from Toshiba is:
12-20-2006 Toshiba Fingerprint Utility for Windows Vista/XP (v5.6.0 Build 3284; 12-15-2006; 12.65M)
And I've already installed what seems like a newer version of the audio driver:
01-10-2007 SigmaTel HD Audio Driver for Windows Vista (v6.10.0.5286; 01-05-2007; 8.17M)
But still my .DLL is version 5.10.4866.0 :-(

I think I'm going to be waiting a while yet for my SP1...

For reference:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_sp1_ga.asp

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/436CBFFE7DCD7B54CC25741000738ADE

Update: I'm glad I'm not the only one!

QIK! Watch my Video

2008-03-18T23:26:00.001+13:00

So I finally got Qik going today, which is cool cause now I can stream live video onto the Internet straight from my phone, wherever I am! I'm not sure what I'm going to use it for, but it's very cool that it's even possible (and so easy).

After being 'invited' a while back, I couldnt get it going on my Nokia E61i due to a 'Certificate Error'. I tried a few things then gave up on it until today when I emailed Qik support. And whatd'ya know, the support was SUPER quick. I got an email response with the fix in like 1 minute or something (thanks, Jane). Here's the fix for installing an unsigned app onto a Symbian phone:
Go to Main Menu > Tools > App Manager
Select Options and then Settings and make sure the following is set correctly:
Software Installation = All
Online Cert Check = Off

So here's my first Qik 'Live' video stream (Driving home from Auckland City, over the Harbour Bridge, but mostly sitting in traffic - a nice sunny day though!):

The other cool thing with Qik is that while you're streaming the people watching can send you comments which come up on the Mobile's screen - so its fully interactive. You can also get it to update Twitter & Blogger when you stream (although when I selected this as an option it did neither today - for some reason). I had some technical difficulties with my first stream - firstly to mount my E61i on the dashboard. Luckily I had some Scotch tape in the glovebox (leftover from posting & wrapping my Xbox 360 back to MS for the Red Ring of Death - again), so I taped the phone to the side of the Windscreen mount for my TomTom GPS. The last one - which killed my stream before I actually got home - was a basic one: The phone ran out of batteries. It seems that Streaming live video over the Internet SUCKS the battery life out of your phone :-)

I can't get over how good the video & audio quality is though, considering the basic technologies involved. Live broadcasts with expensive equipment are soon becoming a thing of the past!

QIK | My Videos

All-a-Twitter?

2008-03-12T23:01:00.000+13:00

I was listening to the latest TWiT podcast today and they spent so much time talking about Twitter (and they've mentioned it quite a bit in the past) so I thought I had to go check it out. They were of course talking about the SXSW Zuckerberg Interview, and how the Twitterers revolted against Sarah Lacy. It intrigued me to say the least.

So I signed up to Twitter today, and duly went looking for friends to follow. But unfortunately none of my friends were there :-( Quite funny really. Hopefully at least a couple of those I've invited will sign up and give it a try.

I just want to see whether it'll be useful or not. I'm hoping it'll be better/more interesting than plain old IM. I've almost given up on Facebook for regular use. Its good to check in every now & then but I can't say I'm that into the Apps and stuff. Maybe the movie app, but the others haven't really grabbed me.

New MediaCenter/HTPC Setup

2008-02-20T17:55:00.007+13:00

I've been thinking about a new MediaCenter setup for quite a while now, and have been going through the options. What I'm after (at a minimum):

Small + quiet form factor
Instant/Very Fast startup
DVD Playback (Region Free)
DivX/Xvid Playback (Local or over network)
WiFi Connection (minimum 802.11G, N=even better)
HDMI output

What I'd like to have (but not critical):

You Tube Playback (Web Browser/Flash)
DVR/TV Recording Functionality
BluRay Playback

The options I've come down to:

XBox 360 Elite (+ TVersity on main PC) = $790

- No region free DVD
+ Xbox360 Games

Apple Mac Mini = $1850

- Maybe no region free DVD
+ MacOS Leopard

Custom HTPC Linux-based PC = $1600

+ TV Tuner & PVR capability

I also thought about, but discounted lots of others (including Xbox MediaCenter, Playstation3, AppleTV), for one reason or another.

I think either a Mac Mini, or a LinuxMCE box would suit me the best. Mainly because I'd love to have a Mac, just to play with, and I kind of like the idea of trying to setup a really nice Linux box, just to see how well it would work. The custom box is also a good challenge too, as it requires lots of comparison shopping for cases, components etc. My mate Pete suggested it, to see how much I could build one for, originally thinking about $1000, but I think the budget's probably going to get blown out a bit more than that.

So far, on the custom LinuxMCE front, I've got a list of components like this:

Case + PSU:

Silverstone ML02B-MXR - $350.56
or Silverstone LC11M - $291

Motherboard:

ASUS P5K-VM - $187

CPU:

Intel Core-2 Duo E4600 2.4GHz Allendale - $218

RAM:

Corsair XMS2 2GB DDR2-800 RAM - $104

Graphics Card:

MSI nVidia 8600GTS HDMI - $278

TV Tuner Card:

Hauppauge HVR4000 HD TV Tuner - $209

IR Receiver + Remote:

Microsoft Remote + IR Receiver - $56

Hard Disk Drive:

500GB SATA2 HDD - $184

DVD Drive:

SATA DVD Writer - $55
SATA BluRay Player + DVD Writer - $523
SATA BluRay + HDDVD Player + DVD Writer - $510

Unfortunately that's clocking up to $1641 :-| OK its a better spec than the Mac Mini, but that's still without a keyboard & mouse - not to mention an OS. Could probably save some money on the TV card and/or the case.

Farewell HD DVD, Congrats Blu-Ray

2008-02-17T22:48:00.000+13:00

Well this news article says it all really: Toshiba to exit HD DVD, end format war

The war is over! All I can say is: thank goodness I never bought an HD-DVD player, even when Microsoft tried to suck me into buying one for the Xbox 360 for $120. Moral of the story: if it sounds to good to be true...

So the countdown begins for:

1. Blu-Ray for Xbox 360 (how long till MS announce one + ship one) - I'm picking 1 month, and 12 months after that.
2. Really cheap, mass market Blu-Ray players (& Blu-Ray HDD recorders) - I'm picking 12months to 2 years (but of course hoping for less)
3. Massive HD-DVD title sales @The Warehouse and JB Hifi etc. - Maybe 1 month spreading all the way to Xmas?

What I really want (right now) is a Blu-Ray burner for my PC (for the backup data storage capacity). A player for movies is kind of secondary. But at least now, when I look around for toys, I know there's only one flavour to shop for. HD-DVD is so last year...

This wired article does have a good point though - has it taken too long for one of these two to die off, so they've effectively missed the boat and no-one's going to buy Blu-Ray movies either now? I don't know. I'd love to have HD movies on my big TV in the lounge (don't care about the PC/Laptop), but I'm not stumping up to Xtra for the massive amounts of extra cash it would take to allow me to download lots of good HD movies. Maybe when a 100GB/month data plan arrives for $100 then I'll be more inclined.

Phone Stuff

2008-02-11T22:51:00.000+13:00

Well I finally decided, and went out an bought my Nokia E61i today. Love the catch-phrase on the box "Enhanced solution; For an easier life" :-) I'll have an easier life for sure, thanks very much Nokia. Waited long enough for it to charge to capacity then got straight into figuring out what had changed, what was better & different than my old one. I have to say, its very nice. It even has a nice feel to it, in your palm. Positives so far then:

Keyboard - great tactile feel, like the @ and / buttons
Camera - takes OK pictures (in the limited tests I have performed so far - the one above was taken in low light), and sends easily via email.
Speed - seems pretty quick
Case - nice shiny metal :-)
Email client - so far no crashes reading emails
Memory card - 256MB in the box with lots of little apps installed
Contacts Button

Negatives:

I think the browser is the same :-(

So now I've got a phone with a Camera, I'm looking forward to all the photos & video I can take.

I heard some cool stuff on the TWiT podcast about the live broadcasting from QIK.com, so I've signed up for the alpha - hopefully they'll let me play. It sounds very cool, and quite pleased to see it supports my E61i (as well as the N95 8GB). Could be fun to use while I'm at the Motor Racing this weekend. The invite's going to come to my phone via SMS message, as you use your Mobile phone number to signup and confirm the request. With any luck they'll look kindly on a request from a tester in New Zealand. Could be a nice complement to the Results Blog.

TWiT Books

2008-01-22T23:22:00.000+13:00

The guys on my favourite Podcast, TWiT, usually recommend audiobooks for download from Audible.com, and I always forget the names of the recommendations. I've listened (read) a number of books they've recommended and enjoyed them, so thought it was cool to find this guy's site: http://www.willhallmusic.com/audibleTWiT.html

Its an archive/list of all the recommendations from the TWiT Podcast. Something that might come in handy one day...

Phone Shopping

2008-01-22T16:42:00.000+13:00

I'm looking into replacing my phone. Currently I have a Nokia E61, which I really like, love the QWERTY keyboard, but don't like the bulk. Don't like the browser. Don't like the email client (HTML email comes up garbled). Miss having a camera. Like the Gmail client and Google Maps app.

Current contenders:

Nokia E61i - like that it's thinner, nice screen, and has a camera.
Nokia N95 8GB - love that it has almost everything, really nice screen, don't like that its thick and has no QWERTY keyboard.
HTC TyTN II - don't like that its thick, not sure about going back to Windows Mobile (stability, performance etc), like that I could get my old Smartphone Apps running again.

I need to do some investigation, I think before I choose. There's quite a price difference too (e61i=$700, n95=$1000, TYTNII=$1400).

Its just too hard to decide!

iPod Touch Apps Update

2008-01-22T16:21:00.000+13:00

Sorry Dicky (http://lifeofstaff.blogspot.com/2008/01/legitimate-apps-on-my-ipod-touch.html) but I think my iPod Touch January Update experience was far more seemless, pain-free and cheaper than yours. Ready to move to NZ yet? ;-)

I simply performed the software update (when prompted in iTunes), followed the upgrade link (after the reboot) paid my NZ$27.99 (GBP10.87) and wahey - all up and running. I must admit I haven't checked the 'manually manage' button - I just sync based on a Playlist and checked Photos/Videos.

I'm very happy with the new software though. Google Maps is very cool. The email client is great - stoked that the gmail IMAP/SSL functionality is already in there. Its nice when a new mail comes in that the music volume is reduced - a cool 'ping' noise plays - then the volume returns to normal. Still don't like the onscreen keyboard though - fat thumbs. Haven't used the stocks application (don't care about that). But the weather app is really nice.

I've already recommended the update to two other iPod touch users today :-)

In car GPS navigation...again

2008-01-08T19:40:00.000+13:00

I finally gave in today, and picked up a TomTom One XL in-car satellite navigation system. I used to use the TomTom Navigator software when I lived in the UK, but when I got back to NZ I couldn't get hold of any decent software for my iPaq, so I've gone without. Until today.

I thought I'd done a pretty good job shopping around and finding the cheapest price, but then I walked into J B Hifi and found they had them for $120 lower than RRP ($488). If only I'd have waited a couple of hours longer :-(

I have to say that the new little boxes are very nice. Still have all the features of the old Nav Software, but are quick to startup, use, and easy to update (both the software and the maps can be updated online through PC-USB connection).

Now all I need to find is some decent New Zealand Points of Interest. I wonder whether my old POI creation software will work with the One XL...

iPod Touch Video and MediaCoder

2008-01-01T15:21:00.000+13:00

I've been looking for a decent Video converter, to get Videos onto my iPod Touch. I tried 3GP Converter , but had some issues with it particularly in getting Widescreen videos converted properly. But I found MediaCoder, and have converted a number of videos now and it works great. Its even got an iPod Touch/iPhone specific version, which is very cool.

The Facebook Social

2007-12-13T17:57:00.000+13:00

I thought I'd try out some more social networking lately, so got signed up for Facebook, and went searching for anyone I knew. The first thing that surprised me was just how many people I knew were already on there. Even my Mum was already there! Crazy. The next thing I noticed was just how much time people seem to spend on there. There's all sorts of mad applications people are using.

I thought this video was quite funny. Kind of sums up nicely how bizarre Facebook can be - the fact that you're browsing through peoples lives - sometimes people you hardly know.

Of course I found that video because someone in my family posted it on my 'wall' :-)

It'll be interesting to see how long Facebook's popularity lasts. 'My Space' is so last year. What strange social things is 2008 going to bring?

Home Server

2007-12-10T14:43:00.000+13:00

Microsoft have had some strange marketing campaigns in the past, but this just tops if off for me: Stay At Home Servers - The 'book' advertising the new Windows Home Server product. Its just bizarre. Surely the market that you're aiming at to sell dedicated servers in a home environment is going to be pretty IT-literate. So why market it using a children's book? Seems mad to me.

The product itself looks pretty cool though. Remote Access to many machines in the house would be nice, but I dont like the idea of opening up TCP/80 and 443 for all and sundry. You're just going to get attacked morning, noon & night. And as for registering for a DNS name in the namespace http://myfamily.homeserver.com! Hello? Want to advertise 'come & get me' to hackers everywhere - what a great idea! :-

I'd like to run one up at home and have a play. I wonder whether you can run VMware Server on it too...

Reviewers Guide

Some of these add-ins look handy too:
http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/windows-home-server-add-ins/

There goes t'Internet

2007-12-04T07:47:00.000+13:00

Oh dear, just got this email this morning from Telecom regarding their Global Internet Gateway:
"Tropical Storm hit the Oregon coast in the USA that damaged the southern cross fibre cables. It is expected to take some time to recover the damaged cables due to the severe weather condition.

You are likely to experience some congestion of your international service until this problem is resolved."

But searching for news about it hasn't revealed much. This is about all I could find: Qwest reports broad outages along north coast - OregonLive.com But that's just talking about phone lines.

I suppose if the major Internet links out of New Zealand are down/degraded then maybe the news can't get through :-)

Update:
"The area continues to experience high winds and heavy rain which have affected landline along the Oregon Coast. The stormy weather condition still prevents technicians from access to the damaged area."

Bummer eh, even the Internet is dependent on good weather!

Update:
Finally some news articles about this today:
"Storm downs Aussie ISP links"
"Blog: If the cable breaks"

This is quite interesting too: New Zealand ISP Topological Map shows the interconnects between the different New Zealand ISPs.

Halo 3 Service Record

2007-12-03T18:56:00.000+13:00

I've been playing a bit of Halo 3 lately - completed the campaign first, then started multiplayer over XBOX Live. Just discovered the online stats - Bungie Online : Halo 3 Service Record. Its really nicely presented, just like everything in Halo 3 really.

The game history function and stats are cool - even has details of all the local multiplayer games I have vs Scott & Gareth. Very cool.

Now I've just got to get some good screenshots and maybe an action video to upload....

Apple Tablet PC

2007-11-07T10:43:00.000+13:00

Now this: Apple Tablet PC is real, says Asus - would be really cool! I love my Tablet PC, and would be very keen to see a Leopard-based alternative. I thought about getting a Mac about 18 months back, when the Intel MacBook Pros began shipping, but now that I've been using a Tablet for so long I doubt I'd be able to go back to a standard Notebook/Laptop ever again. Its just too handy to be able to write, draw, make notes in meetings without a tap-tap-tapping noise distracting everyone.

I'll keep my eyes peeled for any more news on this. It could be an Apple New Year (if the tablet and a decent 3G iPhone comes out).

More:
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/06/1327230
http://www.macrumors.com/2007/11/06/apple-working-on-a-tablet-mac/

Gmail gets IMAP support

2007-10-25T20:20:00.000+13:00

Outstanding - something I (and probably 1000s of others) have been waiting for, for a very long time (ever since first using Gmail): IMAP is now supported. Yay! Not only that - IMAP over SSL. Excellent news for me - this will make managing my email across multiple PCs and my Nokia E61 much easier.

Thanks Google! Death to POP3!

Settings to note:
Incoming server: imap.gmail.com:993 Using: SSL
Outgoing server: smtp.gmail.com:587 Using: TLS

It looks like they are rolling it out to Google Apps users too. The option's not there for me at the moment, so I'll keep checking over the next few days.

I wonder when/if the iPod Touch will ever get the built-in email client.

I found out about it here:
Gmail gets IMAP support - 25 Oct 2007 - NZ Herald: Technology News from New Zealand and around the World

Monitoring Checkpoint Firewalls with SNMP

2007-10-25T20:05:00.000+13:00

I've been doing some work for a client with Checkpoint Firewalls (running Secure Platform, or SPLAT), and wanted to monitor them using SNMP. The two main reasons being;

1. To graph Accepted/Dropped/Rejected packets over time and

2. To Poll the Firewalls for status using 3rd Party Management Tools like "Whats Up Gold" and "BMC Patrol".

The information I found in Checkpoint SecureKnowledge was terribly confusing, contradictory and misleading (has lots of info about Nokia IPSO Firewalls which doesn't work when using the SPLAT OS).

So a brief summary of what I had to do to get it to work correctly:
1. Enable SNMPD

chkconfig snmpd on

service snmpd start

2. Edit /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
Add "rocommunity NotPublicCommunityString 192.168.0.1"

Add "proxy -v1 -c public 127.0.0.1:260 .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620"

3. Edit $FWDIR/conf/snmp.C

Add :snmp_community (
:read (“public”)
:write(“private”)
)

4. Run cpconfig, and enable the cpsnmpd extension

5. Add required security rule to permit access to the firewall from the management server(s) (SNMP-UDP/161) (You don't need to permit access to cpsnmpd-UDP/260)

Following these changes you should be able to do a 'netstat -an' and see the cpsnmpd listening on :260, and perform a local snmp check:

snmpwalk -v1 -c public localhost 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.6

Gotchas to note:

1. The local snmpwalk above uses the "public" string - the one in snmp.C - NOT the one in snmpd.conf

2. snmpwalk from a remote host uses the "NotPublicCommunityString" - not "public"

3. snmpwalk locally (and maybe remotely) using just the OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620 causes the cpsnmpd process to die (need to restart it using '$CPDIR/bin/cpsnmpd -p 260' or cpstop, cpstart)

Once the above are done the management servers can query the enforcement module for Checkpoint SNMP OIDs, such as accepted packets, dropped packets and Checkpoint OS OIDs like CPU usage (accurate), memory usage etc. These queries go to the Firewall on UDP/161 and internally the snmpd process proxies the snmp request for OID .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620 (checkpoint) to the cpsnmpd process on UDP/260.

This happens by default in Nokia IPSO, but not on SecurePlatform.

Some good OIDs to Graph:

Active Real Memory .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.6.7.4.4.0
Total Real Memory .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.6.7.4.3.0
Packets accepted .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.4.0
Packets dropped .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.6.0
Packets rejected .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.5.0
Packets logged .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.7.0
Current connections .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.25.3.0
Processor (System) .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.6.7.2.2.0
Processor (User) .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.6.7.2.1.0

And good OIDs to monitor for status:
Firewall Module State (Installed) .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.1.1.0
Processor Usage .1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.6.7.2.4.0

Useful Links:

Cacti - An excellent (+free) web front end to MRTG/RRD-Tool

Cacti Templates Index - Although the supplied Checkpoint/Nokia ones didnt work for me without customisation. I created some more graphs and data sources using the above OIDs.

What's Up Gold - The new version is very nice. Excellent Web based multi-user UI.

Google Maps Mobile for E61

2007-10-19T17:11:00.000+13:00

Just on my way South for a Weekend away with the boat (hopefully to get in some fishing & diving), and surfing in the car on my E61. There was a link for Google Maps on the search homepage so I installed it, and its very cool. A proper map application with GPS support! Really fast scrolling between locations too. Can't wait to try it out with the Bluetooth GPS i've got mounted in my car.

I wonder how long it'll be till they release one for the iPod touch (once the SDK is released).

Nice DNSCMD Script

2007-10-10T14:28:00.000+13:00

I just came across this guy's blog when searching for dnscmd.exe syntax (DNSCMD.EXE = command line modifications to Windows 2000/2003 DNS zones/records). He has a really nice little batch file to enable the creation of both A and PTR records easily from the command line:
fpschultze - Add an A and PTR record using DnsCmd.exe

Looks like he has some other handy little scripts there too.

The IDxx European Launch Party Tour

2007-10-03T18:06:00.000+13:00

I'm off to Italy this weekend to catch up with friends from the project last year. Should be a pretty cool trip. We're blogging the trip here.

New NZ Video

2007-09-19T20:08:00.001+12:00

This is some nice Marketing for NZ I just stumbled upon. There's more here: http://www.youtube.com/user/PureNewZealand

Cisco IOS Embedded Event Manager

2007-09-19T19:56:00.000+12:00

Another one of the sessions today had more info and examples related to Cisco IOS Embedded Event Manager (EEM). There's a forum where people share scripts which could come in handy here. Wasn't happy to learn that EEM isn't supported on the Catalyst 3750 yet. Will have to look into that in more detail...bit of a bugger as it would be useful.

There's a whitepaper on the Catalyst 6500 and EEM here.

Cisco Compliance

2007-09-19T19:52:00.000+12:00

Day 2 of Networkers, and I tried a few different tracks today. The first of which was about PCI/DSS Compliance. The most interesting thing that I hadn't seen before was CiscoWorks Network Compliance Manager. The report outputs look very handy for Security Managers. Its an OEM'd product apparently - no idea of the price but expect it'll be pricey.

There's a free eval download here.

Another related link: http://www.cisco.com/go/compliance

Cisco Networkers & IOS TCL

2007-09-19T01:43:00.000+12:00

I'm at Cisco Networkers at the moment in Brisbane (Day 1 of 3). Went to some pretty good sessions today, the keynote was very interesting (Howard Charney, Cisco SVP) with lots of crazy facts about the amazing spread of the Internet & technology. Went to quite a good session in 802.1x - with plenty of gotchas and things to look out for, so the slides from that will come in handy.

The session that I learnt the most at was on getting the right events out of NMS, by Benoit Claise from Belgium. He's written a book on this stuff and had some great examples on how to use things like the Embedded Event Manager, RMON and TCL scripts to get some pretty powerful monitoring from the devices themselves. Kind of on a similar line to the TCLsh stuff I came across last week, for scripting things in the CLI - this is a good blog for examples Cisco IOS hints and tricks: IOS Tclsh resources.

Flight of the Conchords

2007-07-18T17:22:00.000+12:00

I just discovered the Kiwi comedians 'Flight of the Conchords', who have recently got their own show on HBO in the US, have a Podcast available for download in iTunes. A few of their sketches are available on You Tube too. I like this one: Very funny!

YouTube - Flight of the Conchords- Business Time

Street View

2007-06-12T15:08:00.000+12:00

I've just been playing with "Street View", a new feature from Google Maps. Its very cool. Wish they had it in New Zealand (but given that its not available for the UK or anywhere else yet I imagine it'll be a long time coming).

This is the Street View of the hotel where I stayed in New York last year (Affinia Manhattan on 7th Avenue).

I'd love to see the cameras they must have used to capture all the 3D images (presumably mounted on top of a car/van of some sort). The Intro Video is quite funny too (nice orange suit, dude).

Analytics

2007-06-09T15:37:00.001+12:00

With the new website I've just done, and the others I've been playing with, I've been looking for a nice tool to do reporting. I think in the past my web host had the Webalizer tool available for use, which was OK. But its not available any more, so you have to munge through raw access logs.

So I found Google Analytics, which is an online web analysis/reporting tool. You just add some script to the pages you want to monitor, and the data is available online for analysis using some very nice tools. So I've got all my websites in there now, and you can see on a world map where the visitors are coming from, how they got to the site and even map out a sequence of pages that you want them to follow and report on that. Pretty cool. And its free, of course.

Just another in the long list of Google tools I'm now using, I guess. >Brainwashed<

Racing Cars

2007-06-09T15:20:00.000+12:00

I've been doing some work for my cousin recently, Dale Williams, who races cars in NZ and would like to drive professionally. I went with him and his family to some of his races, took photos and shot some video, and have put together a website for him:

http://www.dalewilliamsracing.com

He's using the website, plus a promotional DVD I put together for him, to gather sponsors for racing next year. Last year he raced in the NZ Production Racing Series, and won the championship, so he's a pretty good driver.

Its been quite interesting putting all the stuff together for him, as I'm not that big on cars or racing as such, so its been cool doing something new.

I'm thinking about putting the video up on You Tube, but I'm not sure about the rights issues with music etc. Will have to do some digging.

Joost!

2007-05-26T17:29:00.000+12:00

I've just started playing with "Joost", an online TV application.

It looks pretty cool, lots of channels with Music Videos and S.I Swimsuits ;-) I'm not too sure about the buffering though - could just be a NZ Internet thing - but it can be quite choppy at times. Still, worth a look. Invite only at the moment.

Bluesocket again

2007-05-11T15:26:00.000+12:00

I'm working with a new client who has implemented Secure WiFi using Bluesocket "BlueSecure Controller" boxes. It's interesting as I haven't actually seen anyone using these things since I looked at them a few years back, when they sent us a version 1.0 box to review. The early version was pretty cool, but their solutions look to have progressed quite far since then.

I look forward to finding out more about how they tunnel 802.1q traffic across the LAN. Sounds interesting :-} They even do their own access points too.

Built in Intrusion Detection and some Checkpoint technology too.

"Over and Over"

2007-03-08T23:55:00.000+13:00

I've heard this song a few times before (its kind of old) but only saw this video for the first time today (on AltTV) and thought it was very cool. I think I'll buy their CD to see if there are any other good songs.

Hot Chip - "Over and Over"

I'm quite surprised how good quality this video actually is...it's even watchable full-screen (@1680x1050). Go You-Tube!

Flip!

2007-02-08T14:58:00.000+13:00

I recently built my new PC - a pretty major upgrade from the last one - including a new Samsung SyncMaster 215TW screen (which is excellent). So I wanted to take advantage of the new screen, keyboard & mouse with my Laptop. Now this is something I've been thinking about doing for quite sometime, but I've always come up against a major hurdle: PS2 vs USB.

Most KVM switches, even if they support USB PCs, require a PS2 console (PS2 Keyboard/Mouse on the controlling end). I came across the Belkin Flip and thought I'd try it out, and its really good. Not only does it support USB console and USB connections to both computers, it has a little Wireless Remote to switch, so you dont need to see any cables etc. It also supports Audio (share one set of speakers). One of the cool audio features, using the PC software you can switch keyboard, mouse and video, but keep the audio off the other PC - so you can work on one PC while still listening to Music from the other. Very cool.

Some of the other components in my new machine:
* RaidMax RX9 Case (Black)
* Corsair Dominator DDR2-1066 RAM (TWIN2X2048-8500C5D)
* ASUS Striker Extreme Motherboard (nVidia 680i chipset)
* nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS Video Card (640MB RAM!)

Bought pretty much all of it from Playtech (who were very helpful)

AD & Vista Group Policies

2006-12-11T21:01:00.000+13:00

I've been troubleshooting some AD group policies, and came across this guy's website which has some excellent links, including a hotfix that I need to deploy.

GPOGUY.COM--The Windows Group Policy Information Hub!

I also thought the "ADMX Migrator" tool from Microsoft sounds interesting. Will have to download and have a play. I haven't done anything with the new Group Policies in Vista, so this site could be a good reference.

Vista RTM and Audio issues

2006-12-04T22:10:00.000+13:00

Well I finally got Vista RTM on my Toshiba M400 last week (Office 2007 too - very nice). It works really well, total eye candy, even if it is missing some functionality due to lack of driver support. The basic functions are supported well by the native Microsoft drivers.

The major issue I had was with Audio,and it took me days to work it out. Even though Vista (and the Toshiba drivers) both installed correctly and recognised the audio device I couldnt get any sound out. I found out that it was due to the software mute that I had on while running XP Tablet Edition. Pressing Fn+Esc in XP (with the Toshiba driver support) mutes the Audio device. As Vista obviously can't access this function of the tablet without vendor drivers it musn't have realised that the audio was muted. Luckily I still have my XP install on another hard disk, so by going back to the old OS, pressing Fn+Esc again, shutting down and booting Vista I now have sound again!

I found another person with similar experiences here:
Incremental Blogger: Installing Vista RTM on Toshiba M400

Update: I've just found Toshiba created a utility to specifically address this problem!
Sound Utility to Turn Mute Off After Upgrading to Vista (v1.0 r2; 02-12-2007; 1.07M)

Vista Lanyard and comment moderation

2006-10-31T17:37:00.000+13:00

I was reading James Senior's blog today and his post on:
Views on Vista : Vista Lanyard Competition

Reading through the comments to this post really made me laugh. It just proves there are some crazy ass people out there on the web. Prime example (posted re: how often do you wear a lanyard? in order to win a Windows Vista lanyard).

Quote: "seXXI said:
i never use lanyard of any kind and i use mac. and i don want any of those becouse if i wear one i will look like a computer freak and some guy will definitely gimme a kick

so wear them yourself smart guy"

LoL :-D

Maybe he should moderate his comments. Or maybe he does moderate them, and found these comments as funny as I did.

Bootable USB BartPE

2006-10-31T15:43:00.000+13:00

As part of my (never ending, it seems) quest to upgrade my HDD to a 160GB SATA, and install Vista, I recently struggled through booting to a USB stick.

The reason being: If I have an internal HDD in my M400 (the current 80GB) and a secondary HDD in the multi-bay (the new 160GB) I have no CD-Rom capability, which I'll need to boot BartPE and GHOST. I wanted to GHOST from my 80GB to the 160GB so I can keep working, while using the 80GB to try out Vista.

So after much trial and error I followed the following process:
1. Format the USB stick with the HPUSBFW utility (which HP have removed from their download site, but I managed to find here.)
2. Run pe2usb.cmd -f F: to build a BartPE installation on the USB disk (where F: is the drive letter of the USB disk).
3. Change the M400 BIOS setting to boot to USB first. Surprisingly enough this is done through a Windows Control Panel applet. Quite nice really.

So after getting this to work, I can now boot to my 512MB USB key, which runs BartPE and GHOST. So I GHOSTed my HDD (disk-to-disk) and set about changing the drives around, so the 160GB was internal, and what'dya know I ran into another snag.

The 80GB drive is held in a Toshiba drive case, presumably to protect from vibrations etc, and there's a sticker on it which warns against removing the drive from the case. There's only four screws holding the drive into the case, so I thought "no worries" I'll just remove the disk and swap them over. That would have been easy had I not cross-threaded one of the screws when I tried to get it out :-(

I'm now in the search of a suitable tool to remove the offending screw, and/or a Toshiba disk case to store the 2nd HDD in. I'm sure I'll get Vista running one day...

Firefox 2.0

2006-10-25T16:08:00.000+13:00

I've been using Firefox as my primary browser (again) for a few months now, and am quite impressed with it. I downloaded Firefox 2.0 today and it looks really nice so far. I like the Ctrl-ScrollWheel zoom feature, as I use that in Office products quite a lot. It's hot on the heels of the IE7 release, which is no coincidence I'm sure.

Update: OK, so I'm less sold on Firefox 2.0 after a few days serious use. It seems to have a few bugs still. The firefox.exe task seems to run as a zombie after shutdown, meaning you can't start Firefox again until you kill it. Not good. Others are finding similar problems, it seems.

Scar Tissue?

2006-09-29T23:53:00.000+12:00

I've spent a large percentage of my free time recently reading Anthony Kiedis' autobiography "Scar Tissue". Its a pretty crazy book - he has a crazy life story - but its a really interesting read, although at times something of a rollercoaster ride (on drugs, off drugs, on drugs, off drugs...). While reading I went searching for Chili Peppers-related sites. Checked out RedHotChiliPeppers.com - quite nice. The "FleaMail" is a bit of a laugh. Its definitely made me think more about their music - which I've liked for many years now (although Blood, Sugar, Sex Magic - my 1st album of theirs - was pretty late in their career).

One thing I found really interesting about his book is his strong connection with New Zealand. He bought a house up north, and visited many times. (Although a section of the book detailing one of his relapses is pretty scathing of the NZ doctor that prescribed him the wrong meds!) :-D

Vista RC1 on Toshiba M400

2006-09-20T21:15:00.000+12:00

Excellent - someone has put a nice howto up on their blog for getting Vista RC1 on a Toshiba M400, like mine.

Will have to try that out. First I need another SATA hard disk, I guess :-( I just bought a 2nd hard disk a few weeks ago, to insert in the "Ultra Slim Bay". But I bought a 100GB 7200RPM IDE disk - and it needs SATA! Doh!

Back to Akihabara...

VMware Announces New Product for Apple Mac OS X Users

2006-09-09T22:19:00.000+12:00

Finally! Maybe my next laptop will be a Mac afterall. With VMware for Apple Mac OS X the Mac is becoming an even better option.

I wonder how much influence the Petition had on their decision. Not much, I would guess. I'm sure its just a very good business decision.
It'll be interesting to see just how well it performs, especially in comparison to Parallels and Microsoft's Virtual PC.

Slashdot | Commodore 64 Confuses Austrian Police

2006-09-06T15:06:00.000+12:00

I thought this was fantastic:
Slashdot | Commodore 64 Confuses Austrian Police

A great way to secure your data from Security Investigations - just use a computer thats 20 years old :-)

I guess if you're a competent security consultant (with a few years under your belt) you might have had a C64 when you were growing up, so it might not be so much of a problem ;-)

NZ Google Maps

2006-05-27T18:40:00.000+12:00

Google have finally update Google Maps including New Zealand. The street-level maps are really nice.
Google Maps API Official Blog: Aussie Maps! Kiwi Maps! Beauty Mate!

I started using Google Earth the other day too, to track down exactly where I'm working in Tokyo at the moment. Very cool.

MediaCenter nightmare!

2006-04-26T20:26:00.001+12:00

I have an Alienware DHS-2 system, which runs Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. Ever since the recent update rollups have started coming out I've had all sorts of stability issues with MCE. I looked at using Vista in February - but it was WAY too early. So recently I thought of moving to a Linux/OpenSource Media Centre/HTPC alternative (like MythTV).

And it's been a nightmare!

I've had all sorts of issues just getting Linux onto the DHS-2.
Fedora Core 5 - Installed, but wouldnt boot (hang at "starting udev")
Fedora Core 4 - Crashed during installation
KnoppMyth - Hung during CDrom boot

So I searched and found a BIOS update. The DHS-2 is based on an Intel D915POM motherboard, so from the Intel website, I downloaded the latest BIOS. Now I have even more problems!

Fedora Core 5 - Wont install, crashes on DVDrom boot. (Kernel Panic)

So I've downloaded the Debian install DVD image, and I'm going to give that a try - but what a drama. I'm going to search everywhere to see if anyone else has got Linux running on a DHS-2 or any other PC with a D915POM motherboard. Why does Windows seem so simple alongside Linux?

Maybe I'll go back to Windows and try out: MediaPortal

NASA Microsatellites

2006-03-24T09:11:00.000+12:00

I thought these were pretty crazy - tiny satellites about 2ft across - launched in threes from a jet-launched rocket. Even though they're so small they're fully functional, with propulsion systems and communications. Soon everyone'll want one!

Wired News: NASA Microsatellites
Nasa.gov Page

Vista...Ultimate!...?

2006-03-07T22:57:00.000+13:00

I spent this evening installing Windows Vista Ultimate for the first time on my Media Center PC (Alienware DHS-2). While it didnt exactly go smoothly...no audio drivers...wrong TV Tuner drivers...no Front Panel display...it gave me a good taste for whats to come. Looks very cool. This is the first time I've tried Vista - never even bothered messing with Longhorn - and I like what I've seen.

I tried installing again, this time as an upgrade to the XP Media Center build (from the Alienware Respawn image). But that failed. Vista rolled back the installation successfully though, which I was impressed with.

So I'm trying a fresh install again. Maybe this time I'll give it more time trying to work around the driver issues.

UMPC - Origami right?

2006-03-06T20:59:00.000+13:00

This is even more bizarre. Intel's UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) website, apparently hinting at the same device that Microsoft refers to in the Origami Project, also has a teaser for something about to be unveiled. But whereas the Origami site says 9th March, Intels date is the 7th March.

Is Intel going to gazump Microsoft then?

"Stay tuned"

hello...do you know me?

2006-03-03T15:00:00.000+13:00

This must be the most bizarre marketing launch Microsoft has ever been involved in:
Origami Project

Quite a crazy set of flash animations - part 1 and part 2 have been released to date.

Apparently this is the project to deliver Microsoft's iPod-killer device. I guess we'll know more on the 9th March.
CNN Money News Article

Maybe Checkpoint won't get Snort after all

2006-03-03T13:47:00.000+13:00

I thought this news was pretty crazy. The FBI & DoD are objecting to CheckPoint's acquisition of SourceFire (which was announced last year), as they don't want security technology such as Snort to be owned by a foreign company. I wonder whether they'll get their way...seems a bit strange when Snort is an Open Source product anyway. Maybe it's the proprietary "Sourcefire" pieces that they don't want to see going offshore.

U.S. Objects to Snort Purchase by Israel-Based Check Point

Laptops...Tablets...

2006-03-01T21:32:00.000+13:00

I need to get myself a new laptop...but which make/model should I select? There's so much choice when you're shopping for yourself, and not stuck to any corporate standards or budget constraints.

My top choices so far:

1. Apple MacBook Pro
- Would get one tomorrow if VMware for Mac was available
2. Toshiba Portege M400
- Would be nicer with a screen larger than 12"
+ Might be nice and light though...
3. Toshiba Tecra M4
- Would be nicer with a dual-core processor and a fingerprint reader ;-)
4. Acer Travelmate C310
- Would be nicer with a dual-core processor and SXGA res

I also like the new Asus laptop with the "SideShow" external display designed for Windows Vista. Very cool idea...but can't wait that long.

BREAKS CO-OP

2006-03-01T21:11:00.000+13:00

I was flying back from Singapore on the weekend, flicking through the various entertainment channels and came across some new music released by NZ band BREAKS CO-OP. I thought it was very cool, so bought the CD "The Sound Inside" yesterday...been listening to it since. There's some great songs on it.

I used to listen to one of the threesome, Zane Lowe, on BBC Radio-1 in the UK. Excellent radio show, with some great music. Not sure how he's fitting in the radio show while recording/touring/performing with Breaks Co-Op...must be busy!

Web Flights

2006-02-03T23:06:00.000+13:00

I've spent the past week trying to book some international flights. What I found was that most of the Travel websites in New Zealand are rubbish. Only the airlines give you any sort of online booking/costing functionality. All the other travel agents etc. fall far short, usually with just a 'Contact Us' page.

I ended up booking through a great travel agent, from http://www.indulge.net.nz/. Sharon @ Indulge was really helpful, and quite simply put all the others to shame by way of customer service.

It left me thinking though, what a hole there is in the .nz market for a good online travel company, like they have in the uk (expedia, opodo, thomascook, and ebookers). Long-haul airline travel is a market where you really need good price comparisons, as most places are going to be selling exactly the same flights - but usually at different prices.

Runners up:
www.finetravel.co.nz
www.flightcentre.co.nz

Steve Gibson's WMF Backdoor & Mousetrap

2006-01-24T17:01:00.000+13:00

Since I bought my iPod I've been sampling a few of the technology podcasts that are available in the iTunes music store. One of them being "Security Now" with Steve Gibson from GRC.com. I found the recent episodes (22 and 23) about the WMF vulnerability quite entertaining.

Steve's opinion: The recently announced WMF vulnerability is a backdoor intentionally created by a programmer at Microsoft. He's dubbed the exploit M.I.C.E (Metafile Image Code Execution) and created a vulnerability testing utility, called "MouseTrap" :-)

More on Slashdot

An iPod convert at last

2006-01-23T20:13:00.001+13:00

One of my Xmas presents to myself was an Apple iPod (Black, 60GB, Video) which I bought to use in the car (with my Dension iCeLink). I've resisted the iPod for so long (after having bought a 1GB Sony NWE507 only 3 months ago). One of the main reasons I didn't want to go for the iPod was being stuck with iTunes.

The Sony MP3 software (SonicStage) is awful, though. It runs horribly slow on my PC, so bad its hard to use - it makes Media Player 10 seem lightening fast.

So I thought iTunes couldnt be any worse. And its not that bad. Although there are a few things I don't like. One of them is its terrible management of the music library. If I rip songs using Media Player, iTunes wont detect they've been added - you have to do it manually. Now that sucks. Deleted songs stay in the library etc. I'm sure I'm not the first iTunes user to hate these little 'features'.

I discovered the iTunes Library Updater today. It worked like a treat! Now all I've got to figure out is how I can run it on a regular basis - without it tying up 100% cpu for 15 minutes.

Lets try that again

2006-01-23T18:31:00.000+13:00

Well I've decided its time to start Blogging again. Hopefully I'll be able to make a better effort of it this year. Only time will tell I guess...you never know what life will throw at you.

BF2

2005-08-27T10:43:00.000+12:00

I've been playing Battlefield 2 online recently - it's very cool. Only really just started playing on the Ranked servers last weekend, and got my first promotion :-) On my way to Lance Corporal...

Someone pointed out this website the other day: www.bf2tracker.com - Where you can track all the stats about your online play, awards etc. Quite amazing really. My stats are here.

It's here

2005-08-24T23:54:00.000+12:00

Well, i've finally done it. Been thinking about setting up a blog for a while, but never really followed through. I've got a blog setup at work now too, so this one won't have any real work related content. Just ramblings and rubbish I find, along with holiday/travel info and possibly the odd photo.